NOLA Film Scene with Tj & Plaideau
A podcast about acting, filmmaking, and the improv scene in New Orleans.
NOLA Film Scene with Tj & Plaideau
Danielle Lanoux: Crafting Special Effects
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Want to connect with Tj & Plaideau? Send us a text message.
Blood doesn’t just happen on camera; it’s engineered, tested, and coaxed into place under brutal lighting and tighter timelines. We bring SFX artist Danielle Lanoux into the studio to explore how a New Orleans special effects and makeup artist turns scripts into convincing wounds, old-age transformations, and head-turning practical effects without breaking budgets or skin barriers. Her journey from respiratory therapy to film gives her a calm, clinical edge—safety first with illusion a close second.
Voiced by Brian Plaideau
Have you been injured? New Orleans based actor, Jana McCaffery, has been practicing law in Louisiana since 1999, specializing in personal injury since 2008. She takes helping others very seriously. If you have been injured, Jana is offering a free consultation AND a reduced fee for fellow members of the Lousiana film industry, and she will handle your case from start to finish. She can be reached at janamccaffery@gmail.com or 504-837-1234. Tell Her NOLA Film Scene sent you
Follow us on IG @nolafilmscene, @kodaksbykojack, and @tjsebastianofficial. Check out our 48 Hour Film Project short film Waiting for Gateaux: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5pFvn4cd1U . & check out our website: nolafilmscene.com
I'm Daniela New. I'm a makeup and special effects artist for film and just in person. I'm super excited to be here on the NOLA Film team.
SPEAKER_03:Welcome to the NOLA Film Scene with TJ Play-Doh. I'm TJ. And as always, I'm Play-Doh.
SPEAKER_00:Excellent.
SPEAKER_03:Yay.
SPEAKER_00:Danielle, welcome. So, so glad to have you on the show. Brian and I both have had the chance to work with you recently. So I when we met on set, I couldn't wait to get you on the show because we've had a a large variety of different types of people from producers to actors to everything in between. But we have yet to have a special effects artist, hair and makeup unit artist. So we're excited to get your take on the industry.
SPEAKER_04:Yes, I'm excited to be the first one y'all have.
SPEAKER_00:You broke our cherry.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:All right.
SPEAKER_02:Danielle and I met on Shattered Justice. It's an independent film. And we're about to do another film together in a few weeks.
SPEAKER_01:Yep.
SPEAKER_02:And it's called Bayhuasca.
SPEAKER_01:I don't remember.
SPEAKER_02:And people have listened to the show. We've had the director on when we did our anniversary show. And I play the Cajun Jedi. But I don't think you're gonna get to make me up. I'm just gonna look like I look.
SPEAKER_01:Yes.
SPEAKER_02:As far as I know, so you probably should make him up. Probably. Probably. Maybe some blood. We'll see.
SPEAKER_00:I don't know why my character would need that. So Danielle and I worked on a project for Jeff Roberts. He was he wrote a feature, and we shot a sizzle reel that might develop into a short to promote the feature. So I got to see some of your work. And without spoiling anything on that, for one of the scenes, you created something. See how to word this that won't give anything away and break the rules. Uh well, I guess we maybe we could say a body part that looked very, very realistic.
SPEAKER_04:I was about to say body part would be a good good choice.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. I'm scared. So if I didn't know, I I would have thought it was the real thing. Honestly, it looked incredible. And and I think you made a few of them for a couple of different scenes or different angles or whatever. What is your process for creating prosthetics like that for a body part? Maybe somebody needs a bigger nose or they they need bigger ears or or whatever. What how do you go about making those?
SPEAKER_04:I right now I can make little prosthetics at my house. Um, I can't really do anything big and crazy because I don't have an outside area where I can do that. And I also have carpet in this room that I'm in right now. So getting all that stuff and carpet and everything is pretty hard. Um, typically I stay with like little things like cuts and different little body parts that I can either order molds for or make them if I have the material ready, depending on when somebody calls me. Cause a lot of the time what I usually get is a phone call saying, Hey Danielle, can you do this? I need this like tomorrow or in a couple of days or in a week or something. And I'm like, well, you're asking for a really big, a really big thing. I'm gonna have to come up with this on the fly. So sometimes I'll just have to kind of see what I can do. Um, if I can't order it, if it's too big and I need to order it if we have time and there's always money involved with that. So it's kind of like, all right, well, what are our options? Can I kind of get over it and make it look kind of how we need it to look? But it might be a little bit different. There's all kinds of stuff that goes into it, unfortunately. You gotta think fast on your feet. Because what me and you were on, TJ, we um were outside and I had some problems doing what I needed to do because I had to hide something and I was going to adhesive whatever I needed to do back, and it wouldn't stick because it was so hot. So I was really worried. Yeah, I was really worried about it not coming out anything close to what we wanted it to look like. So the fact that everybody thought it looked great made me very happy because as a makeup artist, you're you know, we're looking at it and we're like, no, it looks terrible. I can't put that on camera, don't get it from this angle, and then they get it from the angle, and I'm like, Why?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, you are as critical of your work as we are of our acting. Absolutely. It's absolutely terribly. It's like, oh, and people like that's great. And you're like, no. Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's great.
SPEAKER_04:Yes, absolutely. That's exactly how it is.
SPEAKER_00:So we talked a little bit about it on set. Tell us how you got into this to begin with.
SPEAKER_04:Um, so I've always been a Halloween girly and into special effects and all the makeup and stuff. My grandma, of course, raised me when I was little. So she we were into the horror movies and the Friday the 13th and the nightmare on Elm Street. And I'm like, ooh, I wonder how you do this. And so I've always been in it, and I never really did anything with it until a few years ago. I used to be a respiratory therapist. COVID happened and kind of changed my perspective on how I look at life, basically. And I decided to quit the hospital and kind of go into a different career path, which led me here, which has been really awesome. And you know, learning all the things and stuff like that. And that's kind of how it all happened. And a little short story.
SPEAKER_00:So, pretty much everything that you do, you've self-taught though, on on how to do that, or have you have you studied under anyone?
SPEAKER_04:I did an online makeup course to kind of help with beauty makeup. And then I kind of just as different jobs would pop up, I would go on like the Stan Winston site. They have really great tutorials that they have for special effects makeup artists, anything from like the simplest little like cut to making some type of blood pump or animatronics. They have all kinds of stuff that you can look at. So I would go and do some research and get some products, play, do all the things, and kind of go from there. I had a it was a short. We entered in the Louisiana Film Festival. I think it was in Monroe or Shreveport, that somewhere up there in that area. And I had to make an old age makeup. We had to make it look really, really realistic. Like that was the that was the hit or that was the whole view of what we were supposed to do. Y'all, I killed that. And it was nothing but like thin, basically liquid latex and taking your time and unfortunately making the actress that played this old lady to make a bunch of uncomfortable, weird-looking faces so I can get her face to crease. But it looked really cool. And you wouldn't have thought that she was only in like her late 40s, early 50s.
SPEAKER_00:Have you ever you you see these movies where they they have a latex mask on and then they they pull it off? Have you made a full mask like that?
SPEAKER_04:Not yet.
SPEAKER_00:Are they one-time use?
SPEAKER_04:Um, it kind of depends on what you do with them. I think usually you can use them more than once. It just kind of depends on hey, did this rip? Or what are we planning to do with it? Are we planning to cut it off? Do we need to make multiple? Or usually once you get a mold of someone's face and you have the um the shape and all that and all that ready to go, you can make multiple molds of it. So you can make more besides just one.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I gotcha.
SPEAKER_04:It's just time consuming. Most of the time, that's how it works. I do that with the different like little cut prosthetics that I have and the um, can I show that?
SPEAKER_02:Sure, sure.
SPEAKER_04:Okay, cool. Hold on. Give me a second.
SPEAKER_02:It's gonna get gory, folks.
SPEAKER_04:So whenever I do little things that I can keep or keep in the house, I make a like plastic little platform and I take the clay and I make my cut on the clay. So I sculpt it, do all that stuff, and then from here on top of it, I'll make a mold of that. So this is a silicone mold of the cut I just did. So this will stay, and I can make as many of these as long as I have this for however many I want. Once I do that, I'll pour some silicone in here and then I'll make the I'll make the cut or however many that I want to make so I can replicate it. So I always keep my little molds if I can. But I have it in a little plastic container to keep it nice and safe, and I just reuse it.
SPEAKER_00:So is the coloring for the part that's gonna go on the person, do you have to airbrush it after the fact to match the the skin tone, or is that in the silicone itself? Is there a dye that's in that? How does that work?
SPEAKER_04:So you can either do your silicone clear and then just add your coloring on whenever you put it on the person, or if you want to color the silicone, they do have special coloring for that. Um, I want to say I have um I have a coloring from Cry Lon that you can add to it. But also if you have a like a liquid-based makeup, like a foundation, as long as it's not, I want to say water-based, I could be wrong because I'm thinking on the spot. But as long as it's a specific kind of foundation, you can put it in the silicone and it'll color it too. So kind of you can kind of use whatever you have on hand. It doesn't have to be anything special. Obviously, you wouldn't use some type of cream makeup to put in there, it kind of has to be that liquid foundation. I think it's like a water base or something you have to put in there, but you can kind of make anything. Yeah, it's fine.
SPEAKER_00:How long does it take for the silicone to cure once you mix it up?
SPEAKER_04:20, 30 minutes. Wow. And then um, normally if I so I usually don't do these as much on set. If I do need to do something, I kind of whip it out. I have um a little containers in my kit of silicone, and I'll mix what I need together, which I did that on Shattered Justice, but Brian wasn't there that night. I had to make a big cut on somebody's stomach, and I just whipped out the silicone and went to town and made it look like it was supposed to look, like he got his stomach cut open, and there we were. I was like, give me give me at least 20 minutes.
SPEAKER_02:When when I did the purge of the series, I was one of the victims, and I walked up to the makeup lady, showed her my bald head, I said, I give you all this canvas to work with. And she her eyes lit up, but she had used most of her appliances. So my scar is big, but not my cut. It wasn't a scar. But then they gave me the coagulated makeup and they said, Don't rest your head, which was unfortunate because I had been up for about 24 hours at that point working my other job and needed a nap in holding. And then when I got to set, they made me look like Carrie by pouring the blood all over me.
SPEAKER_01:Yes.
SPEAKER_02:So when yeah, it was a lot of fun, but I don't have a picture of the final product because they were very strict. I have pictures in holding that I snuck, but the NDA was pages long for that series, so I made sure I waited that till the after the episode of Aired. So what you're describing, putting the appliance. I know, because I would have been red, and then on the the series claw, I was in a green, it was I was in a claw foot tub with liquid soap colored with green, getting baptized. Imagine the Christmas card I could have put out.
SPEAKER_01:I love that.
SPEAKER_02:So anyway, you put the appliance on someone's stomach, right? And then did you have to put a thick, non-moving, coagulated blood on it?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, so I usually use some type of well, first I paint the cut with um an alcohol paint just to kind of give it some depth, then anything just to see. Then I usually put like a scab blood on it. Most of the time I'll kind of like fill it and make it look nasty. Um, and then I have like the liquid blood that we'll put, and I like to use it's an alcohol drying blood. So that way if we have to do kind of multiple takes or they move around, it's not gonna go anywhere. It it's gonna stay there and it's gonna look pretty good. I know sometimes there's some blood that it just disappears that I've used, which is a I don't remember what brand it was, but it was that was annoying. So I kind of stay towards a couple of different brands because I know what I'm getting.
SPEAKER_00:Awesome. So the I I wanted to circle back on the blood and you hear different things that people use on set for blood. So do you just buy kind of in bulk a blood product or what do you do for that?
SPEAKER_04:So I usually keep on hand a few different types of brands of blood just because I don't really know what I'm gonna need to do sometimes. Sometimes, you know, they'll come up to me and they're like, Hey, can you can you also do this? or you know, whatever. So usually whenever I know I'm on something kind of gory, I usually come to set locked and loaded. I have the blood pumps ready to go, the big ones, the little ones. I'll have like the big liquid blood, which it usually doesn't matter. The funny part is I have um, I think one of the brands that I like, it literally comes from Party City and sounds really sounds crazy, but it comes from Party City and I freaking love that brand. It just looks so great. I use it for everything, it's awesome. And I can get that in like gallon jugs and it's great. It's it's it's wonderful. If I need it, I can just grab it, go. And then the more expensive blood I usually get in little bottles and I keep it in my kid in case I need it for something like the like the alcohol drying blood, or there's a blood called is a company called Red Brum. And they're very thin. So I don't usually use it like for set and stuff, but in little cuts, I will because it doesn't stain clothing, and I really like that, or it doesn't stay like if you drop it on the floor, it won't stain the floor. It's very easy, it just comes right off. So I love that because you know, usually whenever you see me on set, you know stuff's gonna get messed up.
SPEAKER_02:Other than blood products and wounds, what else have you done? I know what I know what you're about to do, and we can't say, but something that that if I said makeup artist and you've done a person would not expect to hear that.
SPEAKER_04:I'm trying to think. Usually, let's see, there's beauty makeup, there's regular hair stuff that I've done, the old age makeup, blood, gore, all that. I don't think I've done anything that's kind of, oh, you did what? I don't think I've done anything like that yet. Yet.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. So I was basically thinking monsters or aliens or you know, something where you go, oh, that's your job? Oh, that's so cool. What would you like to do that you haven't done?
SPEAKER_04:Really? I would like to do like a full-on head-to-toe monster, like do the whole thing, give face-off vibes like back in the day. Do the sculpt, do the whole thing, put it together. I mean, I've had I've had done like costuming and stuff because sometimes you know when we're on this little tiny set, you kind of have to do everything.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:But that I mean, that's a normal thing to expect when you go on set, I guess. But yeah, something like that, like a full-on, like whole creature would be cool and actually have the time to make it look good, not just have like you have an hour.
unknown:Right, right.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Or like, hey, we're going in the day, and yeah, you have two hours to you know to do all the all this that you need to do. Awesome. And then when you get there, you have 30 minutes. Well, shit.
SPEAKER_02:That might have been a plan to say at least a month ago. Right.
SPEAKER_04:Just say it. Exactly. When we were um go ahead.
SPEAKER_00:I was just gonna say that I laughed when you said monster makeup because I saw Brian's face light up like you said, Christmas is coming early. Because he it wasn't just me. He loves monster makeup. Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt, but I wanted to throw that out there because I didn't know that that's what you're laughing at. I saw his face go like like you just told him Christmas was coming early. That's the best analogy I've got for it. He would be absolutely right.
SPEAKER_02:I didn't think of that amazingly. When she said face off, I thought Nick Cage, John Travolta rather than the monster show that you know, so it took me a second, but you are absolutely right. I love being the monster.
SPEAKER_04:Love it, love it. One day.
SPEAKER_02:I see our future, right? Every guest, we're like, we're gonna work with you, do this, we're gonna make a monster movie. And the twist is TJ's gonna be the monster. It'll be a shaven monster.
SPEAKER_01:I was gonna say that's a lot of hair.
SPEAKER_02:Bald bald cap. That's a good question. I was gonna do, I can't remember what it was, and we talked about different ways to handle the beard because I I was thinking full, and then is there something like an appliance or something you can put over the beard so the makeup doesn't stick? You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_04:So I normally there are like little barriers you can put, like some type people put like Vaseline or you know, some type of little barrier like that. Other than that, I don't think that there's anything that you could put on top of it, it like an appliance that would cover it. Now, I could be wrong because I don't know everything that's out there either. So I could easily see somebody being like, No, you can do this. We all learned something. Um, I haven't seen it yet, doesn't mean it's not out there.
SPEAKER_02:Right. When I played Death in the Wheel of Heaven, which is now on Blu-ray and DVD, they put Elmer's glue on my eyebrows. And I don't think this happened there, but it's thinning on the edge of my eyebrows now. So I would never want to take that chance again.
SPEAKER_04:No, I would use wax.
SPEAKER_02:You know what I mean? I don't mind being bald, but this is weird to me because it used to be full and now I have it like a centimeter, an inch width.
SPEAKER_04:People told you use Elmer's glue. Um, I kind of like to use wax, it's a little bit harder to get off, I feel maybe sometimes. I mean, it it's give or take, like one's glue and one's wax. So, but I don't think it it doesn't rip out your hair as much.
SPEAKER_02:Right. Which that sounds weird because we know what wax is used for, i.e., the 40-year-old version. So the movie, not like a real 40-year-old version for the video. Anyway, Danielle, what was the first movie you ever worked on or TV show?
SPEAKER_04:The first movie I worked on was Aspire. It's a little film about a man that has Asperger's and he's going through life and you know, all that stuff. So I did beauty makeup mainly for that movie. It wasn't anything crazy, but it did help me network and beat a bunch of people, so it was pretty cool.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that's Warren Mitchell. I'm friends with him on Facebook. And you also you worked with Rachel Knapps, who's been a guest on our show before. Oh, yeah. I love it. We met on one night in Miami, she was my quote unquote date for the night, and we made up this whole backstory. And she's such a sweet shot. See, I told you I talk for talks for a living.
SPEAKER_04:She is, she's super sweet. I actually did for a fire. She was one of the ones or one of the main ones that did makeup on.
SPEAKER_02:Oh wow. Yeah, yeah. Very cool. And he struggled to get that one out, and he it was an accomplishment for him to get it out. I was proud of him.
SPEAKER_04:Absolutely, absolutely. He did good.
SPEAKER_00:So have you so on set you were telling me about a pump that you made to spurt blood. You were talking about making it with like a pump sprayer. You had to do it on kind of short notice with some tubing. And you mentioned uh animatronics earlier. Have you made anything or have you done anything with that?
SPEAKER_04:Not yet. Not yet.
SPEAKER_00:Like where you had to create something.
SPEAKER_04:I would like to venture off into that. Um, I haven't had anything come up to where that I would have to make anything yet. I kind of am slowly building up my stock over here since it's just me. So I have, you know, all the silicones and stuff like that and um the different blood pumps, and which is pretty funny about all of that, but I haven't done anything animatronic yet.
SPEAKER_00:So another question I thought of what do you do for people that have sensitive skin? I've got pretty sensitive skin. I struggle with certain types of glues and adhesives. And you know, what if I have to have some type of prosthetics stuck to me? What options are there for that?
SPEAKER_04:So what I typically do is I have a thorough convert or I try to have a thorough conversation or send some questions out to anybody that is getting makeup from me for whatever project, so I can find out any allergies or any type of just anything that I need to know about that would affect your makeup job. Normally, whenever it comes to kind of stuff like that, like with airbrush, I airbrush a lot. Well, what is that? That's alcohol based paint. Sometimes I've had a couple of people where they couldn't do that. We we couldn't do that. So we had to swap what we were doing and change it to like a cream makeup or something that wasn't going to irritate their face. So there are different options as far as like makeup and stuff goes. Prosthetics, on the other hand, is where it gets a little bit more tricky. So sometimes, depending on if it's somebody that has worn prosthetics fairly often, they kind of know what adhesive works for them and what doesn't, or you have to just not do it. Like I was on a set before where I had to make somebody old and I needed to use the old age stipple or you know, the liquid latex. And that's basically what it is. She told me that she didn't have any allergies prior before that because I had a conversation with her or had the director ask her. And then when she found out what I was gonna have to do to her, either the story changed, or then she thought about hey, I had this reaction to just latex, you know, around my face before. So when she told me that, I was like, all right, let's not do that. Let's go a different route, let's go a different way about it. Did it give this does it give the same effect sometimes going a different route? No, but you can't compromise somebody's allergies. You don't want them to go to the hospital or have some crazy reaction while they're filming, and then it just destroys the full project. So you kind of have to figure it out as you go. Our main our main goal is to not put anybody in any type of danger or do anything to them that would cause them harm.
SPEAKER_02:That's that's nice of you.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, or set them on fire or blow them up or anything like that. We don't want any of that.
SPEAKER_00:Ooh, following.
SPEAKER_04:Brian says he's like, oh, fire, what?
SPEAKER_00:Brian's still stuck on monster makeup. You gotta burn the monster at the end, it's all coming together.
SPEAKER_01:He's like, let's go.
SPEAKER_02:I ain't scared until it starts.
SPEAKER_04:He'll be A for it until he realizes, oh, this is what you meant by fire. You need me to do what?
SPEAKER_00:And there go the rest of the eyebrows. So I'm still trying to wrap my head around this. So say you need to put a a scar on somebody's face. What what do you adhere that with?
SPEAKER_04:Depends on which route I want to go that day. So if I use a prosthetic, I can use prosade is the typical adhesive that you would use for that, and then color it, do all the things. If I want to draw it on myself, depending again, a bunch of different routes. So we got the prosthetic, we can have the silicone that I can just put on your face and make it myself to where there's no adhesive on your face, it's just the silicone sticking. Also, there's scar wax, where there's a company that I think it's narrative cosmetics that has a scar wax that I really like because it's more pliable with your face or like your body, so it kind of moves with you and it looks like you really did get gashed. That's also an option. I don't usually put adhesive on my scarwax, I just don't like doing that. You can to make it kind of stick in place. But again, if you have somebody that is allergic to adhesive, I'm not gonna do that to their face. I'm just gonna put the wax on there. There's also a product called Sinwax, which it's a little bit harder of a wax. Pretty much they use it on set pretty frequently. I know I have. It stays on better, it's more sticky. And but it's the same thing as scar wax, technically, just different. And that I don't usually use an adhesive for that either. That's once that's on, it's stuck. You're gonna have to scrape that off. Or if it's not anything that you're really gonna get like a big close-up on, you can draw it on there with the alcohol paints and you know, put some, you know, to make it look like there's something there if they're like in the background.
SPEAKER_02:I gotta say alcohol paint is the extra or background of the makeup world.
SPEAKER_04:I love my alcohol paint.
SPEAKER_00:That's what they painted a scar I had uh in a film one time. They used that alcohol paint because it it was from a distance, it didn't need to be perfect. It wasn't they weren't doing close-ups of it.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I use the um Bridget Collodion, which is what it tends your skin up to make that scar, and then I'll color it.
SPEAKER_00:Uh it's good to know that there's options because I've always wondered that I've not been in a position where I had to have I I've worn contacts, I've had stuff drawn on, painted on, but I've not had to have big things glued on or stuck on, and I was always kind of worried about that. But it's good to know that there's options for it.
SPEAKER_04:There, yeah, there usually is. And if they whoever it is, plans appropriately, then you should be fine. And then sometimes there's just those times where you just gotta cut it, depending on what what's going on, or get somebody else to wear it.
SPEAKER_02:An armed stunt double close above the scar.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, right? Or they're just not gonna have this, like we're just gonna have to change it.
SPEAKER_02:He healed magically after he was cut, right? Nice, very cool.
SPEAKER_00:So on set, you were talking about making a blood pump on on the fly. What are some different ways that you can make blood spurt? Because that seems to be pretty common in SFX.
SPEAKER_04:So my first horror movie that I was on, it's called Christmas in Mark. And oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So someone was getting stabbed.
SPEAKER_00:A lot of my friends were made that.
SPEAKER_04:Yes, I I was there. So I had to make something to replicate an artery on the neck. So I got a bicycle pump and some tubing, and I poured blood in it. And this was the first time I ever made a blood pump. First time I was on like literally the second time I was ever on set for anything. So I was a nervous freaking wreck about this. I ran the tubing behind the bed, I taped it to his neck, and I was like, hey, don't like, don't move, don't, you know, get some crazy angle to where you see it, but it's right here. Don't do nothing. They built like a this was so funny. They built like a little, it kind of reminded me of the show Dexter. You know, like you know how he like plastics out the room because they couldn't want to get any blood on the wall or anything crazy. We weren't really sure what it was gonna do. So they built like the they plasticed out the bed, and um, I still managed to get through the crack and on the wall, which was really funny. But they I was like, all right, on three, we're gonna go. And I was just sitting there, I was about to pass out, vomit, whatever I was gonna do. And I was like, All right, let's go. It worked out perfect. It looked so good. It looked like he really did get stabbed in the neck, and then I was like, holy bananas! Hell yeah, let's do it. Then for shattered, I made a blood pump to replicate kind of like um like a gunshot wound, like a crazy gunshot wound. And that was a like a grass sprayer from Home Depot Lowe's, and I got some thicker tubing and a stopper. So I cut a little hole on the side of the tubing, put the stopper in, and I would pour the blood in, crank it up, and spray it, and it would just go. And then the little ones I have, I have, of course, from being in the hospital, I have some extra like IV tubing or like nasal cannulas and stuff that I would, you know, flip off and make whatever size I need and have like a little syringe and just hide. Because also in shattered, I had to do that too. We uh were doing just a little stab wound, and I had to hide behind the actress for the shot and hold it together and let it go. And then I caught her when she fell. So the outtake is pretty funny because I was like what kind of surprised that it worked as well as it did, and then when I caught her, I wasn't expecting her to fall. So that was fun. But those are kind of the at-home blood pumps you can make. Eventually, I would love to buy squibs, that would be pretty tight, but they're very expensive. So I'm gonna stick with my little with my little homemade ones for now. They get the job.
SPEAKER_00:How did the squibs work?
SPEAKER_04:So, like for a gunshot wound, you can use them multiple times if you buy the the the bigger package, of course, and you attach it to the person and it has like a remote control, and you click it and it it goes. And that's pretty cool because you don't have to worry about being in the shot or getting it at a certain angle. Because even in Shatter 2, we with Hick, I didn't want to have to, you know, do what I had to do to hick. And I was hiding behind him, making sure you didn't see me and all that stuff. So, like, you don't have you can eliminate that with stuff like that. But sometimes you just kind of have to hide for the most part and just get covered in blood.
SPEAKER_02:The Sam Raimi school of blood, huh? Make it basic, but make it work. Do what you gotta do. Are squibs pretty expensive?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. So the last time I looked at them, the reusable pack is like four thousand dollars, I think.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, wow.
SPEAKER_04:Which is insane. Wow. So I'm like, okay, we're just gonna stick with what we got. It works fine. Yeah, they get take it.
SPEAKER_02:When I hear squibs, I I when I hear squibs, I hear you know, gunshot. So okay, I didn't know if you were saying something because you said reusable, if it was just like a little blood pump and it would just, you know, do what you're talking about.
SPEAKER_04:Yes, yes, sir.
SPEAKER_02:And you have to make sure you face the explosion out. Yes, because it's got a backing. But if you turn it around, that's nice.
SPEAKER_04:Which is also kind of like, do I really want to get that? And because my my stupid self would accidentally, you know, try and kill an actor by accident. Like, oh, oh no, it's not. So at least like if I have something taped to you and it's just a little too, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Notice how she's setting me up, TJ. You know, if I tape this to you, Brian, you're gonna be okay. I promise.
SPEAKER_00:And then you see her look over at somebody and wink.
SPEAKER_04:Don't don't let me have anything that could explode.
SPEAKER_02:I get that sense about you. I understand.
SPEAKER_04:That could be a problem. I will say this. Um, whenever I make these things at home, it's kind of comical because I always go in the yard because it's where I have to test it. Those looks that I get from neighbors is funny. It's so funny. The last time when I made that first one, I was literally standing in my driveway holding it up in the air, watching it, and I had blood everywhere, like in my driveway, all the way up to my door, and forgot about it. Forgot about it being there. Um, was super excited that it worked, forgot that the blood was there, ordered pizza for dinner. And when I answered the door, the little pizza delivery guy looked so scared. That's exactly what he looked like. He looks so scared, and I couldn't figure out why. And then when I shut the door, I was like, he probably was like, I'm about to get murdered. And this little, you know, white girl with tattoos answers the door.
SPEAKER_02:And like, what time of day was the pizza delivered?
SPEAKER_04:Like 5 p.m.
SPEAKER_02:Okay, so it's still daily. A 1 a.m. delivery when he sees that that be like on a different note, we're coming close to the end. But before we ask you our last question, I have a friend who had a haunted house, like he had had a separate house and Katrina hit, which isn't funny. But when they broke down the door to check, see if anybody was there, on the wall was a cutout of Winnie the Pooh and Eeyore with blood splatter up and down the wall. So they're like, we gotta it's clear, let's just go.
SPEAKER_04:Oh my I thought you were gonna say he had like a skeleton, like a fake skeleton hidden behind the like underneath his cabinets. Because I've seen people do that.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, uh Winnie the Pooh all bloody is funnier to me. Skeletons, that's just New Orleans, you know.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, but it's it is funny.
SPEAKER_02:Danielle, it's been a pleasure having you here. It's been a lot of fun. I can't wait to see you on set again. Yes, but at time to kick you out.
SPEAKER_00:Do you have some socials, a website, uh, stuff that you want to share so people can come find you? Because uh we have a lot of friends that are filmmakers and we're always looking for special effects and hair makeup artists.
SPEAKER_04:Uh absolutely. Uh if you find me on Instagram, my personal is Witchy SFX Artist. My business is actually bewitching makeup, SFX, and photography.
SPEAKER_02:That's very good. Good.
SPEAKER_00:And we'll do it. Good night, TJ. Yeah, Danielle, thanks for joining us. It it was great to have you on. I really like hearing about different aspects of the film industry and uh special effects hair makeup unit is a very necessary part of the business, and you make people like Brian look good. Good luck with that.
SPEAKER_04:Thank you guys for having me. It was fun.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, of course. You can do that? Wow, you're a wizard. All right, folks, see you next time. See ya.
SPEAKER_01:Bye.
Podcasts we love
Check out these other fine podcasts recommended by us, not an algorithm.
